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6.24.2011

One day while on facebook I was REALLY bored. Another page I followed posted about a comment giveaway event going on on the MiaPia Tutus page. I headed over to like MiaPia and see what it was all about. She would leave updates that asked questions for her followers to comment on. Then she would either pick a random comment or the comment number stated would win. Well I ended up winning twice that night! It was so much fun. After that I kept going back to her site to oogle at the pretty petti skirts, tutus, dresses, and wings. There are so many more products than that too. You absolutely have to check it out! I wanted to get some more stuff for Madelynn. If you didn't know Madelynn is girly and loves to dance around the house like a ballerina or princess daily. MiaPia Tutus' items are perfect for that. Well I didn't have money for things like that since we're having a baby soon and I needed to get baby things. I found out MiaPia was doing ANOTHER comment giveaway. So I participated. I won twice again! I hadn't received the products I won from the last time. This time I won a $10 voucher. I decided to use it for one of the mystery boxes she has on her site. When ordering the box there's a spot for comments about specific things. I asked if I could get a cape because I saw them on her page before. Well she commented back and said yes! I was excited. I expected just the cape in the mystery box. Maybe a bow.

Madelynn dancing in her tutu and butterfly wings

Well it was taking a little bit to get here. I knew the shop owner was finishing up college, working, and had a family. I just messaged her to see a time frame on the products. After all, they were free so I was for sure in no hurry. She emailed me back within 12 hours. It was less than 12 hours but I don't remember exactly how long it was. She told me about being busy and a time frame on when the items would be worked on since one of them was a custom tutu dress. After that I received several more emails and answers to all of my questions very quickly answering exactly what I asked with exact answers. Not generic answers you get from some places. I have also seen her communicate with customers on her facebook page. She always gives a straight forward answer and I've never seen anybody go away unsatisfied.

I received my products this week. Everything is beautiful! It's all very high quality. Not something you could just go buy at the dollar store. Madelynn loves it all! She was so excited to open up the box. She just HAD to put everything on at once. It was pretty cute. I didn't manage to get a picture of it though I wanted to. The mystery box ended up having the cape, 1 set of wings, 3 flower clips, 2 headbands, and a mascaraed mask. I think that's a great value for the amount of stuff. I also received the custom tutu dress, ballet tutu, and butterfly wings I won. I think those are Madelynn's favorite. She wears the ballet tutu and butterfly wings EVERY DAY! I really really like MiaPia Tutus. It's a great company. Her items are all reasonably priced. She has awesome customer service. The products are high quality. And, my daughter LOVES the stuff she got. I haven't given her the cape yet. That goes in her bag of big sister stuff.

one of the headbands and flower clips we recieved

MiaPia Tutus is going to allow on of you to win a custom tutu. The size can go from newborn up to a girl's size 10. After winning and responding with your information it will take 3 weeks for your tutu to be made and sent. She's quite busy with custom orders right now.

6.23.2011

First for me is flip flops. But after that it's Sun Screen. If we are going to be in the sun for more than 1 hour my daughter and I get slathered up in the stuff. Ever since I was a little kid I've always burned rather than tanned. I think my daughter will be different since she has more of her dad's olive complexion but I don't want to take my chances at such a young age.

Has UVA-UVB broad spectrum protection and antioxidant protection. Though I really don't know what the antioxidant thing is all about...

It's tear free and PABA free, hypoallergenic, and water resistant.

That's all the stuff that makes mom happy. But it also has stuff that makes kids happy. They have Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob on the bottles. The Sunbow Sunscreen is also colored. The Dora is pink and the SpongeBob is yellow. My daughter loves that Dora is on the bottle. I never have to fight her to put it on. She even tries to put it on herself sometimes. With it being colored(that dries clear) I don't have to worry about making sure I get it all over my squirmy toddler's body. I can see where I've put it. It's supposed to be bubble gum scented. I can't tell though. All I smell is the good ole sun screen smell. Which is ok. I love that smell.

Sunbow has lots of other sunscreen products. They have chap stick and a face stick. The face stick is interesting. Especially the pink one. It goes on pink and STAYS on pink. For like hours. I put some on my hand to test it out. It was pretty bright pink at first. Then I took a nap. When I woke up it was still just alittle pink.

This giveaway will end July 7th. I know that's long for my giveaways but I'm having a baby next week so I don't really think any blogging is gonna happen for about a week or so after Tuesday. Before Tuesday I'm gonna cram it in though! I have 1 more giveaway coming up this weekend!

This one's not a facebook freebie but if you have a little boy or girl(or husband!) that loves Mario it's worth looking out for. K'nex is giving away 300 Mario Kart Wii figures at 4EST. When you get your figure if you receive a golden ticket with it(only 5 will win, Willy Wonka Style) then you win an awesome prize pack with a Wii, the entire Mario K'nex set, and a trip for 3 to the K'nex headquarters. Pretty cool stuff! Head over right HERE. I will be sitting at my computer trying VERY hard to get this one today. My daughter and husband both LOVE Mario.

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011

Is your child afraid of monsters? If so, then you need Monster Spray!!

Lately Connor has been complaining about monsters in his room at night. I'm not sure if he has made this up so he can stay up later or if he is really afraid. Either way, I decided to make monster spray.

I took my weekly trip to Michaels and found some cute monster stickers. I took an old Glade spray bottle and peeled of the labels. Then I decorated the bottle with the monster stickers and some letters I already had.

Now we spray his room every night before we go to bed to keep the monsters away. Connor keeps it on the side of his bunk bed just in case he needs it in the middle of night.It seems to be working. So if your child is complaining of being afraid of monsters, maybe you need some monster spray also:)

I hope you enjoy it. Maybe it will help someone's kid sleep through the night.

6.14.2011

A good friend of mine has a question about starting her baby on solid foods. This is her fifth child and she's never had this problem before. He's 7 1/2 months old and over 20lbs. I don't remember his exact weight right now. He's a healthy growing boy. He sleeps ALL NIGHT and takes good naps during the day. He is EXCLUSIVELY breast fed. She has tired to give him solid foods before. The first time he was around 6 months old. Every time she gives them to him he gags and chokes on it like the texture is to much. She wants to know what she should do. Should she just wait and try occasionally to see if he starts to accept it or should she try to force him to eat it, giving it to him every day until he's fine with it? She doesn't want to end up with him only eating mac & cheese when he's 3 because he doesn't like the texture of other foods. But at the same time she doesn't want to push something on him that he's just not ready for. Can you please help her out and share your stories?
THANKS SO MUCH!

6.10.2011

Go HERE to like Lipton Iced Tea on Facebook. After you like them go to the Special Offers tab and print your coupon for a FREE 20oz bottle of Lipton 100% Natural Tea! I've tried this tea before. It's pretty good.

6.07.2011

You know you're 36+ weeks pregnant when...
-you no longer walk, you waddle.
-you're out of breath and completely exhausted when all you did was walk up the steps.
-you wonder if your water can break if you sneeze to hard.
-you do sneeze and feel a leak. You first think to yourself, "did my water just break?!". Then you realize, "Nope, I just peed my pants."
-you can barely reach the stove to cook dinner.
-you never want to cook dinner.
-all you want to eat for dinner or any other meal for that matter is brownies or watermelon.
-you can drink gallons upon gallons of water and still be thirsty.
-all that water you just drank because you were dieing of thirst gave you heartburn.
-you have to sit to put on pants.
-you're out of breath after getting dressed.
-you can no longer wear tennis shoes because your feet are either to swollen to fit into them or you can't reach your feet to get them on or tied.
-you get a sudden craving for a food/drink and you feel like you might die if you don't get it RIGHT NOW!
-you don't get out of your pjs unless you have to leave the house or there's someone coming over.

If you have anything else to add please do! I could go on and on but I figured I should stop before I embarrass myself. lol!

The Facebook Freebies and Giveaways I know about for today so far are;
-Chips Ahoy is giving away 5000 free bags of Chips Ahoy new Chewy Gooey Cookies at noon(EST) every day from June 6th to 9th. They look YUMMY!
-Lane Bryant said, "Maybe we can give away a gift card tomorrow..... stay tuned!". I think that's worth at least a like and a check in today.
-STRIDE Gum Canada(for Canadian readers only!) is giving away 10,000 free gum samples every week until June 13th.

That's all I have for now. I'll let you know later if I hear about more. Also, remember to share either here in the comments or on the In the Mommy Business Facebook page if you hear about something. Then I can be sure to share it with everyone else.

Lysol has an activity book to teach kids Healthy Habits in a fun way! Head on over HERE to get an activity book for your children. Parent's are allowed to get 5 copies. Teachers and Health Care Professionals get 30 copies. Other Care Givers get 10 copies.

Since the last time I wrote a post about My Cloth Diapering Adventure things have really changed. Well not really changed as much as progress has been made. I have made 10 fitted diapers out of old tshirts. I love them. They're so cute. They were lots of fun and really quite easy to make! I don't have pictures of them on a baby yet. But I will be sure to post those when my baby or my sister-in-law's baby gets here. I've tested out the absorbency of these diapers on my daughter. I made them with no velcro so that I can use a snappi to hold it together. Because of that I'm able to fold it into the shape of just an insert and stuff it into a pocket diaper. I'm quite excited about it for when the baby grows out of them because I've recently developed a strong dislike for my microfiber inserts. But we'll get to that later. So I stuffed one of these in a pocket diaper for Madelynn. She wore it for naptime and it worked great. There was no leaking. That night I put it and the Thirsties Jersey Hemp insert I have together. The next morning her clothes and bed were dry. The diaper was really heavy when I took it off of her. So I'm pretty excited about the absorbency of these diapers I made FOR FREE out of old tshirts that I probably would have ended up just throwing away. And the fact that they double as inserts after the baby is done using them as diapers is just AMAZING.

I have developed quite the cute stash of diapers now. I love it. I didn't think something you kid poops and pees in could be so exciting. 2 years ago I could have cared less about diapers. They were just something you bought, they got pooped or peed in, and then thrown away. Now they're cute, they save me money, I can make my own, I care about how they smell after I wash them or my kid pees in them, the smells that they accrue cause stress, and I spend hours online looking at different ones. Diapers have become a hobby. Definitely not something I saw happening.

On the topic of diapers stinking and my new dislike for microfiber. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing wrong. And apparently I'm5 not the only mom out there doing it wrong. My microfiber REAKS of ammonia every time Madelynn pees on it. Occasionally she'll get a sore on her bottom from it. But not usually. It drives me crazy. Since I'm so in love with my diapers. I desperately didn't want to have to stop using them because I couldn't get whatever is causing the smell cleaned out. So I read and read and read some more. I found out that flats can be pad folded into the shape of a microfiber insert and stuffed into a pocket diaper. I was very interested since flats seem like they can be cleaned easily and you KNOW everything will get out of them. So I kept reading and found out that you can go to walmart and just buy flour sack towels. So that's what I did. I headed over to walmart and picked up a pack of 5 flour sack towels for somewhere around $4.84. When I got home I boiled them for 15 minutes then stuck them in the washer on a rinse cycle. After that I put them in the dryer. I used 2 on Madelynn's diaper that night. She woke up with dry clothes. I took it off her and there was no stink. Which was quite exciting. I knew the first few nights wouldn't have any stink. I have now washed them 4+ times and aside from 1 time, when I left them overnight plus some in the washer because I forgot about them and they had a musty smell so I did a hot wash cycle with some baking soda to get the smell to go away and the baking soda didn't rinse all the way out because I put more in there than I should have, there is still no stink. I'm quite pleased with the cheap fix. I plan on buying 2 more packs of the flour sack towels eventually. I've even experimented with folding them the different ways people fold flats for naptime. It's quite fun. I think anyone that cloth diapers should experiment with flats at least once.

I think that's all of the updating I have for now. Next time I update I will share with you My Cloth Diapering Adventure with detergent. I'm currently not done with that experiment.

6.03.2011

Congratulations. I will be contacting you for your information shortly.
I don't know if I'm going to be posting any giveaways for a week or so. I need to figure out the link issue on facebook and blogger needs to figure out the comment problems. It just seems like a really bad and unfair time for giveaways when all this stuff is messing up. I will still be posting reviews and deals. Sorry I've been lacking in the deal/freebie department this week. I just haven't felt up to looking for them. For some reason it seems like alot of work right now. Hopefully I'll be more motivated and on the ball next week.

6.02.2011

I should say, a few questions.
I haven't told my whole family that we're going to be homeschooling our children yet(my family doesn't read my blog, don't even know if they know I have one so they won't find out this way). I think I'm mostly afraid of having to deal with the ignorant responses that I am sure to get from some. Then all of the questions that I will have to field from others. Most of Casey's family knows. And they're great about it. They seem to have a completely different view on some things than my family. I say all this because I was at my grandparent's house the other day they didn't have any of the grandkids/great grandkids there. Normally they watch my cousins and my second cousin during the day. I asked where the kids are and they started down the list of where everyone was. Joey just started preschool. Keller and Thomas started summer school. And Alaina's school hasn't let out for summer yet. My grandpa said, "Everyone goes to school now!" Madelynn gave me this look. It was a look like, "Mommy I wanna go to school." It broke my heart. She's been telling me for a few months now that she wants to learn. I keep telling her she has to wait until fall and we will start school. But now she knows everyone else goes to school and she wants to start NOW. I can't start now. First off I'm having a baby the beginning of July. That's a month away. Whatever I teach her in that month I know probably won't be retained because there will be AT LEAST a month after having the baby that we definitely won't do school. Secondly, I have no clue what to start with! She's 2. She'll be 2 1/2 this fall. She already know her colors. She knows how to count to 12 or 13. She knows how to count objects. I know to teach her letters and numbers. But she gets bored with that REALLY FAST. Is there a fun way to go about teaching those? Am I missing something? I have cool flash cards with animals and Dora. I tell her what the letter or number is and have her tell me. We go through all of them and then start over. She knows 2,3,4,8,0,B,D,E,K,L,M,O,P(most of the time),R,S,T, and Z. I think that's ALOT for someone her age. But like I said, she gets bored REALLY fast so she stops paying attention then I get annoyed and it's no longer fun for either one of us. Then she tells me ALL THE TIME she wants to learn how to write. Can you teach a 2 year old how to write? I've never seen a kid that young write. I don't think she has the muscle control or patience for it.

My questions for you are:
-When and how did you tell your extended family that you are homeschooling your children? How did they react? How did you respond?
-What do you teach a preschooler?
-How do you teach a preschooler?
-Should I buy a fancy curriculum or go with dollar store and walmart books?
-How many days a week would you recommend doing school with a preschooler?
-How do you keep a kid interested? Should I just stop when she gets bored or distracted so neither one of us gets frustrated?

I'm sure there's lots of resources and blogs out there to answer all of these questions for me. I just don't feel like reading through a million different things when I could just ask you ladies. If there is an awesome link to a blog that you know is really helpful share that too. I'd like to have good resources. Not just what I find searching.

6.01.2011

So I'm having a crappy parent day. At least I feel like I am. And I think most of you might agree. My day started at 4:30am. Madelynn came in and woke me up. I took her back to her bed but she was in my room again with the lights on within 15 minutes. So I made her just lay next to me when I tried to sleep alittle bit more. That didn't work. Have you ever tried to lay with a 2 year old that was awake and ready to go? Sleeping doesn't happen. So we got up at 5:30 when Casey's alarm went off. I knew that nap time was only 6 hours away. I could make it 6 hours. So I made muffins. I figured I should make the most of my morning because I knew there wasn't much to come of this afternoon. Well the whole time I made muffins Madelynn whined and cried at me telling me she was hungry and she wanted her muffins. The one thing a kid can do to annoy me is whine. I absolutely detest whining. My brother used to do it all the time when we were kids and I would just want to punch him it was so annoying!
So after the muffins were done she tried to pull the hot pan off the stove onto herself and I yelled. She cried and went to her room. Then we had breakfast. Things were going alright for about 10 minutes. Then she decided that I NEED to hold her. Like ALL DAY hold her. So she climbed and jumped on me. I don't know if you've ever had a 2 year old head butt your 35 week pregnant belly but it doesn't feel good. I needed space. I was felt like I was suffocating. I feel horrible when I feel like that when all she wants is for me to hold her. So I bribed her with candy. I told her if she got off of me and went to play in her room she could pick a piece of candy we got from the parade Monday. She was all about it. She went to play in her room. I got my space. For like 15 minutes. I decided to get myself some soda. She magically appeard right next to me in the kitchen with a cup asking if she could please have some. So I gave in. I know it probably wasn't the best idea. She's 2 and a she's already driving me crazy today. Let's add caffeine to the mix! She did great though. Drank the soda. Only stuck her hands in it a few times to pop the bubbles. I got to put the rest of the diapers away and organize the diaper shelf. And she's playing in her room again. There's still the occasional moment where I have to tell her to get out of the kitchen. But for the most part it's going alright now. I hope it keeps going that way. I still feel like a crap parent because I'm still looking forward to naptime. I'm still sitting here on my butt in front of the computer instead of cleaning or doing something productive. I've got a pile of dishes on my counter from not doing them while Casey was on his long weekend. I have a full basket of laundry in each bathroom that needs to be washed. The living room is scattered with toys and desperately needs vacuumed. But here I am. Writing a blog post. Because I'm waiting for naptime.